Independent Australia readers have registered their interest in joining a single-issue political party focused on the creation of a federal independent commission against corruption. Investigations editor Ross Jones reports.
HERE is a ray of sunshine in a dark world: the birth of the Australian political party, Federal ICAC Now.
It’s on.
Federal ICAC Now (FIN) aims to be Australia’s newest political party.
The nascent party requires at least 500 valid members to be recognised by the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) and so become entitled to be listed above-the-line on the Senate ballot paper.
FIN is now accepting formal membership applications on its just-published website, federalicacnow.org.
Membership will be free until FIN is recognised by the AEC. A modest fee will be charged for membership after that date.
The AEC advised via email that a requirement for registration is that
...the party needs to provide a list of the names of between 500 and 550 party members who are on the Commonwealth Electoral Roll and who are not also relied upon by another party for registration purposes. A person can be a member of multiple parties, but under section 126 of the Commonwealth Electoral Act 1918, paragraph 2A states that “[t]wo or more parties cannot rely on the same member for the purpose of qualifying or continuing to qualify as an eligible political party.
The party needs to lodge a membership list of between 500 and 550 members as part of their application. The membership list needs to contain each member’s full name, residential address and date of birth. To allow the processing of a party’s application to proceed quickly, email and telephone contacts should be included for each member. Failure to provide comprehensive contact details for members will delay processing the application while the AEC waits for members to respond to letters.
Since IA published two articles calling for the formation of a single-issue political party focused on the creation of a Federal Independent Commission Against Corruption, more than 100 Independent Australia readers registered their strong interest in joining such an entity.
'Since IA published two articles calling for the formation of a single-issue political party focused on the creation of a Federal Independent Commission Against Corruption, more than 100 Independent Australia readers registered their strong interest in joining such an entity.
Here is a sample of the emails received:
'I would be interested in an involvement in the setting up and operation of such a political party. I despair at the gutter level of honesty and fairness in the present government.'
~ Peter B
'Happy to put my name to this much overdue measure!'
~ Brett D
'I support the idea of forming a FIN party. It’s essential.'
~ Peter H
FIN invites members from across Australia and hopes to run candidates in each state and territory.
Australia desperately needs a Federal ICAC before its already-deflating democratic tyres go permanently flat.
Will you join us?
It’s easy at federalicacnow.org.
You can join Federal ICAC Now HERE.
Or email contact@federalicacnow.org now and express your ideas and/or interest.
Investigations editor Ross Jones is a licensed private enquiry agent and the author of 'Ashbygate: The Plot to Destroy Australia's Speaker'. You can follow Ross on Twitter @RPZJones.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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